


Lapdog

by leiascully



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Dogs, Domestic, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-08-07
Packaged: 2018-04-13 11:19:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4519929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How something that small takes up so much space is the real X-File, but here's a first: I have no desire to investigate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lapdog

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: season 3  
> A/N: For h0ldthiscat.  
> Disclaimer: _The X-Files_ and all related characters are the property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Studios. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

I hesitate before I knock on Scully's door. I'm standing in the hallway like an asshole when a couple of her neighbors walk by. I nod. They nod. Scully's neighbors like me, mostly. They see the badge and don't think about what it means. Even the occasional breakout of police tape across her door doesn't seem to dissuade them.

Anyway. I'm stalling. Not because I don't want to see Scully. Not because of the case (although I can already tell it's not going to be one of her favorites - the assignments we get shunted off on us from other departments rarely interest her). 

It's because of the dog.

Look, I know dogs are carnivores, I know people are meat, I know all of that. But this little puffball gives me the creeps. You'd think he could have waited a little longer before he started chowing down on his former owner. We don't keep regular hours, and what if Scully runs out of dog food? Is he going to take a couple of fingers for an appetizer while she digs out the kibble? 

Anyway. I steel my nerves and knock on the door. "Scully, it's me," I say, and I hear her undo the locks. Queequeg yaps and yaps. I guess the feeling is mutual. I wonder if her neighbors like him.

"Come in," Scully tells me. She's got a towel in her hands. Queequeg dances around her feet. She's been doing the dishes, it looks like. I should do the dishes. It's such a responsible adult activity. I guess I could wash the chopsticks that come with my takeout. "I'll just be a minute. Have a seat."

Q and I stare each other down. Those beady little black eyeballs give me the creeps. Dogs should have big brown friendly eyes and drooly, jowly faces, not button eyes and sharp little teeth. I move toward the couch and he crabwalks along, still giving me the thousand yard stare. If he can see that far. All that fluff around his eyes seems like it would impede his vision.

We shamble toward the couch like a couple of gunslingers afraid to take their eyes off each other. I break first and sit down. Immediately Q is bounding up onto the couch (how? It's at least twice as tall as he is) and, as always, straight onto my lap. 

I like to think I'm not a particularly vain guy. I do all right, and I've used my apparent charms to good advantage more than once. Nothing big, just the nicest piece of pie in the diner (not a euphemism) or a skip to the head of the rental car line. Mostly. Anyway, leaving the rest of it aside, the one thing I do care about, the thing I spend my parents' ill-gotten gains on, is my suits. Armani. Hugo Boss. Suits with drape and structure. Suits made of wool like butter. Every one of them dark (nothing like Scully's cranberry and taupe numbers for me). Every one of them a perfect magnet for orange dog fluff. 

Enter Queequeg. Doesn't matter if I put the file on my lap. He's scratched through several case reports. Doesn't matter if I have anything else balanced on my knees. Doesn't matter if I stand up - he jumps and jumps until the net effect is the same. The only difference is that if I don't sit down, my balls don't get stomped on by tiny little rocks with razors in them, but then Scully gets this face like she's waiting for me to bolt, like we're so far off the beaten path that I can't even pretend to be some kind of functional human with manners, and I just can't take that little pained crease between her eyebrows. So I sit, and suddenly it's dog from my knees to my hips. How something that small takes up so much space is the real X-File, but here's a first: I have no desire to investigate.

So there I am, sitting on her couch, lap full of dog, and he's doing his best impersonation of an elephant staging a very localized stampede. I'm holding the file up over him so I can read through it again. If I try to move, he yaps. If I stay still, he yaps. If I turn a page, he yaps. Meanwhile, he's shedding like there's some kind of intense windstorm happening, and I just had this suit cleaned. Scully comes in, hands all dry. 

"It's nice that Queequeg likes you," she says, and god, she's smiling that sweet, melty little smile she gets every once in a while and I can never muster any resistance against it.

"Yeah, he's great," I say, because what else am I going to do? I've stepped on enough of her few and far between moments of happiness. 

"What have you got?" she asks, settling at the far end of the couch. She's wearing a cardigan I hadn't seen at the office. It looks comfortable, and strangely devoid of orange fluff. Meanwhile, I've turned the corner of hairball and am heading toward full-blown muppet status.

"A few interesting robberies," I tell her. Queequeg yaps in my face. "They'd like us to work up a profile." Q yaps again. "Maybe you should just read it on your own, since I seem to be inspiring a lot of commentary tonight." Q cocks his head at me. Outfoxed by a dog. Again. I hand the file over and sink into my corner. 

Devil-dog not withstanding, I can't deny all of this feels cozy and domestic, which is not something I frequently experience. Scully pulls her feet up and tucks them under herself, absorbed in absorbing the details in the file. There's a fire in the fireplace crackling quietly to itself. Queequeg settles down, de-escalating our mutually assured destruction. He might be some kind of evil dust bunny masquerading as a dog, but he's warm. In a way it's comforting. I lift one hand to pet him and he gives me a little glare, but doesn't bark. Good boy. Scully makes a little "hmmm" noise and tucks her hair behind her ear. I just breathe in the whole moment and hold it in my lungs for as long as I can. Maybe some of this peace will diffuse into my blood and create some kind of antibody to the chaos that seems to infect my life. Scully glances at me, probably noticing the hitch in my breath, and I just smile at her and pet her stupid dog, who's trying to work his claws through my suit trousers and leaving a spot of drool on my knee. 

There are worse things than a daily trip to the dry cleaners.


End file.
